


Standing on the Edge

by Lizardbeth



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-27 03:32:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardbeth/pseuds/Lizardbeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After <i>Revelations</i> Leoben goes to rescue Sam from his self-destruction, and finds he needs Kara's help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standing on the Edge

**Author's Note:**

> This is related to my other Sam/Leoben fics, where one particular Leoben fell for Sam back on Caprica, during the resistance. But this story stands on its own.
> 
> This is an AU where Earth 1.0 was unpleasant, but habitable, and the Fleet is trying to settle it.

* * *

Leoben stood at the end of the alley and watched the row of tents, waiting for the sign.

All of the tents were gray and seemed identical enough to be Cylon tents - except that the fronts of most were marked in some way: some with a painted name and others with something more whimsical like a string of beads or strips of cloth. He decided he would hang something outside his tent as well. The others would understand, and not imitate him exactly, though he knew they would all be tempted to do so.

He got a few glares and a rough shoulder or two, here in the middle of the human side of the camp, but mostly no one bothered him.

He was less certain the same was true for other Cylons here. Or really one in particular… Caprica Six had come to him.

"Saul's worried about Sam," she'd told him - the Six instinct to protect high in her eyes. "So am I."

He frowned at her, hiding his moment of concern behind confusion. "Why tell me?"

She gave him a look, not buying it. "You gave the order to make him untouchable on New Caprica. I was there, and I know it was you. You said it was because of the Twos' project with Kara, but it was more, wasn't it? He changed you on Caprica; as much as Kara affected the others."

Leoben hesitated before admitting quietly, "More. None of them has ever had as much of her as I had Sam. There was something… He burned. I didn't know why -- I never dreamed of the truth -- but I wanted to be near it."

"They pull at us, don't they?" She smiled at him in perfect understanding for a moment, before her smile slipped away. "But if he's burning now, it's in fire. He pushed Kara away, he won't talk to anyone … this place, it hit him hard."

"It hit all of us," he observed.

"Not the same way. Someone needs to help him."

Which was likely true. Sam had been swimming in a current of self-doubt and grief long before they'd discovered Earth.

"What makes you think he'll listen to me?"

"Maybe he won't, but why not try?" she countered. Faced with Six logic, he nodded. It was a show of reluctance, because he didn't want to admit to her that he would've gone anyway, just as soon as he knew Sam needed him again. She gripped his arm in thanks, and went back toward her lover and the father of her child.

A child of his own was not in the pattern, he knew that. He'd known it from the day he'd entered the resistance camp on Caprica, ready to spy on them and eventually bring them all to a trap, where the others could cull them for the farms. He'd done none of that in the end, pulled in by the blue eyes, the athletic body, and the dimming embers inside, with their promise of a bright flame. He'd been … beautiful. And Leoben had realized immediately he had a different task in coaxing those embers back to life.

He'd done it then on Caprica, and again on the base ship. If he was needed now, he would do whatever was necessary.

His palm itched with the memory of touching Sam on the base ship, and the feeling told him that he was lying to himself. This was not only for Sam; no, this was for himself. He wanted Sam again, and disguising that want in what was best for Sam would only lead down paths where at least one of his brothers had already fallen.

But setting aside that desire, when he remembered so clearly how Sam had felt under his hands and his mouth, and the taste of his skin, was impossible.

He waited, head bowed for a moment in the middle of the road, letting the wind cool him off. Then, feeling a bit more as if he could be there for Sam without his own wants intruding, he started toward the tent where one of the soldiers had just picked up a dinner tray left on the ground. The soldier muttered in the tent's direction: "Frakking toaster --" then realized Leoben was next to him. "Sorry. Sir."

It made him angry to realize that he was getting more respect than Sam, after all Sam had done for these humans.

Leoben stepped in his path, stopping the young man. "Imagine for a moment that everything you ever knew and believed about yourself was stripped away. And then imagine that this great sacrifice bought only this wasteland, and you'll have an idea of what that 'frakking toaster' feels. He has only ever defended humanity - remember that."

Without waiting for the young marine's response, Leoben stepped around him. The front of the tent had no markings. Its lack of differentiation marked its inhabitant as much as a C-Bucs banner would have, at least to a Cylon. Perhaps the humans would be more fooled.

If not, the military presence in the area should be a deterrent to civilians with a grudge. He counted four pilots and six guards at the ends of this small street where Sam was only one of many high-profile possible targets - including Admiral Adama and President Roslin, though their tent was larger and had a flag of the Colonies out front.

He turned back to the blank tent, pulled the flap and ducked his head to enter. "Sam?"

The inside was a sharp contrast to the outside -- warm and dim -- and he paused on the threshold to shed his coat. Sam was on the bedroll and pad, which was spread out on the ground along the opposite wall. He didn't move or make any sound, and at first Leoben thought he was asleep.

He let the flap fall shut behind, plunging the tent into near darkness. His eyes adjusted to the flat gray light pushing through the canvas, though Sam remained only a vague dark shape until Leoben settled cross-legged on the ground near him. He listened, counting Sam's breaths. "I know you're awake."

Without twitching, Sam asked coolly, "What do you want?"

"I came to be sure you were here of your own will. That the humans were not keeping you a prisoner."

Sam chuckled once in dry amusement. "You came to rescue me?"

"If you need rescuing."

Sam didn't answer immediately, and it sent a little warning shiver down his own spine. "No. The guards are for my protection. Of course, I don't know who's protecting me from the guards…" he chuckled again, humorlessly. "But that's okay. I don't want a war over me. Adama really is trying."

There was something not quite right about his voice… Leoben leaned closer, trying to get a better look. Sam was on his back, looking upward and his open eyes were only a glint in the dimness. His hands were folded on his stomach, making the wing on his bare arm seem oddly misshapen, so it caught Leoben's eyes for a long time, before his gaze traveled up Sam's shoulder.

There were strange shadows on his face. Then he realized: no, not shadows: bruises. Someone had hit him on the cheek and split his lip. "Sam! What happened?" he demanded, though it was obvious he'd been in a fight. There was a canteen not far away and he poured a bit of the water on the cloth from his trouser pocket. "Who did this to you?"

"I wandered through the civilian side. Met some old friends." He reached up to touch his lip and Leoben batted his hand away to clean it gently himself.

"Did you defend yourself?" Leoben asked, knowing the answer was no when Sam shut his eyes and didn't answer. "Where else did they hit you? Do you need to see Doctor Cottle?"

"No, it's fine. The guards found me and pulled them off."

He had slipped away from his guards, Leoben translated in his head, and knew what that meant. "You sought it out. Why?" Leoben asked and dabbed at the small trickle of blood released when he brushed off the dirty young scab.

"They want someone to blame. And for a moment… I could feel," Sam answered in a distant, hollow voice. "I knew I was alive."

"You are alive. And there are better ways to prove it." Leoben leaned forward and touched his lips to Sam's, lightly, careful of his hurt. Sam didn't flinch or move his head away, but he didn't kiss back either. His eyes were closed, accepting Leoben's touch, just as he'd accepted the fists of the others.

"Come to the base ship with me," he urged in a murmur, with his hand on Sam's cheek. "You'll be safe there. You'll be loved."

"By you?" Sam opened his eyes to look straight at Leoben.

But if he hoped to unsettle Leoben, it didn't work. He merely smiled a little bit and answered with level, truthful calm, "Always."

"Even though I'm such a disappointment? I'm hardly the angel or prophet you all thought I would be…"

Leoben traced Sam's nose and the line of his lips and jaw, unable to stop touching him, now that he'd started. "You are who you've always been, Sam. Your soul still shines, and it brought us here."

Sam shook his head. "You should hate me for that."

"If the promised land had been Elysium, how long until human and Cylon would be at one another's throats again? But instead, we are here, together; we're learning we're the same. This is where we're supposed to be."

Sam murmured, staring off into the distance and seeing something Leoben did not, "I know. It doesn't help."

Leoben leaned down and kissed the bruised cheek, his temple and forehead, whispering, "If I could take this pain from you, I would."

Sam's hand fell on his knee and brushed back along his thigh. "You can. At least for a little while."

Leoben drew back a little ways to search his eyes, seeing only a smoky intent of want that made him swallow and become hyper-aware of the fingers on his leg. "Here? What if someone comes looking for you?"

Shrugging, Sam answered, "No one's going to come. And if they do, I don't care."

Leoben hesitated, uneasy feeling in his stomach that he couldn't name. On the base ship they'd had help from the other Twos to keep the humans away. Here, they'd have none. There were humans outside, any one of which could open the tent in search of Sam. It didn't matter for himself, but Sam shouldn't be caught frakking another Cylon, especially when he was still married to Kara. The other Twos' desire for her was only an echo in himself, but he certainly didn't want her stumbling in on them. There was no resurrection anymore.

"But Kara…"

"We're done," Sam interrupted harshly.

Leoben knew that was wrong. "But you are destined --"

"Don't," Sam snapped, anger sparking in his expression for the first time. "We filled our destiny. It's over. Now, are you going to stay and frak, or get the hell out?"

When Leoben was still blinking, trying to figure out an answer, Sam's hand curled around the back of Leoben's neck to bring him down, mouth to mouth. It was hard and must have hurt Sam but he didn't flinch or loosen his grip. It was a tight and hungry kiss, and made his muscles tense and heart start to jump. Leoben couldn't help licking the swollen lip, tasting just a bit of blood.

He put a hand on Sam's shoulder to push himself away, and then couldn't let go. His fingers kneaded the muscle beneath, drawing his thumb up the cord from shoulder to neck. Sam smirked up at him, eyes shining with reckless abandon. "I'm thinking you want frakking."

He tried not to get drawn in, and stay focused on the necessary action, not the desired one. "This is just another form of punishing yourself. You want someone to interrupt," Leoben told him. "You want them to hate you. What then, Sam? Will you taunt them into killing you?"

"You're so frakking dramatic," Sam retorted in disgust. "I want one thing right now, and that's your hands and your mouth on me. Give me that," he urged in a whisper. Sam's hands slid down his flanks to his waist, slipping underneath his shirt to find his skin. Sam's hands seemed so warm. "That's all I want. To forget. To feel alive."

Since that was all Leoben could offer him, he leaned down again and this time when his lips touched Sam's - Sam's opened for him.

He let out a soft breath against Leoben's lips, as if giving up the ghost of his despair -- and his hands slipped around to Leoben's back, always so needy for touch. When Leoben pulled back, he kissed down the neck and the hollow of Sam's throat, pushing the dog-tag chain out of the way.

Then his hands fell on the Colonial tanks, the ones that clung to Sam's torso and every curve of muscle. He dragged his fingers down Sam's chest and stomach, grabbed the hem of both tanks, and pulled them up. Sam helped, stripping them off in one motion so graceful, the eroticism of it hit Leoben even more than the bare skin.

But what had once been smoothly perfect was marred with bruises and scrapes, some new, but some old enough that Leoben knew tonight was not the first time Sam had gone looking for someone to help him feel something.

"This isn't the way," Leoben murmured. His hands slid up Sam's arms and shoulders and down his chest, avoiding the bruises but catching his nipples with his palm, down to the abdomen and his hips. Leaning down, he caught one nipple in his teeth and tugged, and under his hands, Sam's hips jerked. He sucked the other hard, while his hands pulled open Sam's pants and groped inside.

Sam let out an eager groan, widening his legs when Leoben's hand slid down to cup him. The feel of his soft skin made Leoben shiver and his own cock was tingling.

"Oh, yes, yes, I need --" Sam hissed, his hands fisted into the blanket beneath him, and his back arching to bring him into closer contact with the hand massaging his cock.

When he was erect, if not all that hard, Leoben let his fingers trail across his balls and sensitive perineum and feather across his hole. His legs widened and he lifted his hips to give Leoben more access, "Gods, I - frak me, just do it."

"Not yet," Leoben murmured and bent to lick Sam's cock. He used just his tongue, tasting him, lapping at the head and in long strokes up his shaft. He held Sam's hips down with his hands until Sam was squirming and his cock was stiff - flushed and hard beneath the soft skin. Kneeling between the spread thighs, he sucked on his own fingers, wetting them, and was amused when Sam bit his lip at the sight, knowing what he was going to do. Then Leoben put his mouth over Sam's cock at the same moment he pushed both fingers inside him.

Sam gave a soft, but wild gasping cry that settled into pants for breath. He tried to thrust upward into Leoben's mouth, but every movement let Leoben's fingers push deeper, until he was frakking himself and Leoben's mouth, all without Leoben doing anything but being still.

Then, the flap of the tent opened and he heard Kara's voice, inevitably, "Sam? I heard you'd gotten in a fight, and you were -- " her voice trailed off into silence. "What the frak is going on here?" she demanded, her voice shaking just a little.

Leoben refused to flinch. He pulled his mouth away, drawing upward slowly, and turned his head to see her staring at them. Or more precisely staring at Sam's wet, stiff cock which had so recently been bruising Leoben's lips. And -- if she could see it on the other side of Sam's thigh -- staring at Leoben's hand between Sam's legs and the fingers easing free of him.

His voice unsteady too, with panting breaths, Sam drawled, smirking with the taunt, "Hi baby. What does it look like?"

Before he could say anything more hateful and provoking, Leoben laid his hand on Sam's lower belly, "Sam, hush." Then to Kara, "If you don't tend your garden, you shouldn't be surprised if someone comes to tend it for you."

She blinked and swallowed hard. "What?"

"I'm going to frak him," Leoben told her bluntly. "Because you won't. Someone needs to make him know his own value, or he'll continue to seek his death in meaningless fights."

He saw the way her eyes flared with shock, as the words hit her, and then her gaze slipped past him to look at Sam's face and body. Leoben wondered if it was the first time she'd noticed the marks and realized what they meant.

"Oh, not that again," Sam groaned. "Somebody beat on me as a Cylon. Not like it's the first time," he sneered at Kara and then lay back, shutting his eyes. "Why don't you go frak each other? It's what you want anyway."

Leoben flinched at that, unbidden guilty feelings rising in him as a legacy from his brothers. His gaze met Kara's for one electric moment, before she snapped her eyes away.

Then he turned his attention back to Sam. "I'm not like them," he reminded Sam in a quiet voice. "I was on Caprica. You were the one who captured me - not her."

"You - you were on Caprica, with Sam?" Kara asked. Leoben was pleased by the confusion in her eyes.

But Sam answered. "I had a nice thing going with Leoben here, until I figured out he was a Cylon. And then I shot him dead." He chuckled, bitterness like acid. "Which is pretty frakking hilarious, isn't it?"

Kara took his meaning, even though Leoben didn't understand, and she took a convulsive step forward. "I would never--!" Kara blurted. "For gods' sake, Sharon's my friend. You couldn't really believe I'd shoot **you**."

He opened his eyes, glaring at her balefully. "Honey, you put your hand on your sidearm when that Six murdered Jean. I saw. And that's when you still thought I was human. What the frak was I supposed to think?"

"I saved your ass from airlocking, **after** you dumped the truth on me. You didn't figure it out then?" she retorted incredulously.

"You wouldn't talk to me. You **hit** me."

"You were pushing; I pushed back. I thought you'd been lying to me from the beginning- that I was your experiment. But now I know you found out when I was … gone. Gods, it was a joke! Just a bad joke. I didn't mean it." She let out a harsh breath. "So, frak, here we are. I'm not going to let anyone kill you, Sam, not even you."

For a moment, watching Sam's face, Leoben thought her words might have broken through the shell of hurt around Sam, but then the dark claws closed around him again. His lips curled with some humor and he stared at the canvas roof. "Just go, Kara. I know you want to. I’m sure Apollo would take you back."

Kara's lips tightened and her eyes went flat. She knelt down and slapped Sam across the face. "You son of a bitch."

He grabbed her wrist, lifting up his torso to glare in her eyes. "Safe and easy, wasn't it you said?" he snarled. "Well, I'm not safe, Kara. I'm not easy. I was **patient** \- I waited for you to deal with your shit, waiting for you to come back to me. But you know what? I've got shit of my own now -- like my whole life being a frakking **lie** \-- and I don't have the energy to deal with yours too. I'm done."

He pushed her away, and she overbalanced and fell backward, half-sprawling on the floor. She stared at him and her eyes slid to Leoben. For a moment he could read the plea for him to do something, fix it, before her expression closed up.

"You would rather frak the Cylon?" she accused, and Leoben winced, wishing she'd chosen a different line of attack. The last thing Sam needed right now was the implication that Cylons were less.

"And you don't want to frak one. So, I guess it all works out," he shot back.

"Fine," she said, tightly. "If that's what you want." She got to her feet, and for a brief flicker, he saw the doubt and the hurt flash in her eyes before she turned away. She went through, and the flap dropped behind her.

Leoben let out a soft sigh, disappointed he'd read her wrong. Maybe one of the others might have had better luck with her. When he turned back to Sam, his eyes were open, looking at the doorway with a deliberately blank face, trying to hide the pain that was so naked in his eyes.

"You got what you wanted," Leoben said. "You pushed her away. And yet you don't look pleased."

Sam lay back down, and again there was something in the way his muscles moved that reminded Leoben of where they had been before her interruption.

"It's better like this," Sam said, no trace of the bitterness or anger in his voice, just weary acceptance. "I'm not going to drag her down with me."

He turned his head away from the entrance, and his eyes met Leoben's. For a moment, he let the silence linger and stretch. It was so quiet Leoben heard movement outside the tent, faint like a breeze touching the canvas or a whisper far away. Then Sam spoke, and his voice was soft but certain. "She doesn't understand. But I know. I knew when we came here. There's only one way this is going to end." Leoben cocked his head, puzzled, and he listened closely, knowing he was about to hear the truth. Sam continued, each word coming as if dragged. "I thought I was made to bring us here; or maybe I was made to love her. But -- that's not true. I was made -- made --" his voice faltered and he couldn't finish.

For the first time, Leoben saw one of the Final Five looking back at him -- the eyes were ancient, with sorrow and wisdom, that saw the true pattern of what was to come. With a shock that felt like a blow, the pattern he'd thought he'd seen, lifted and reshaped itself, so he could see too. He shook his head in denial. He wanted to curse and deny the truth, but he couldn't.

Grief twisted his heart with physical pain and his voice came out louder than he meant, because he had to strain to make himself speak at all. "You were made to die for us."

Sam lifted his hand toward Leoben. "This has to end," he whispered. "All this hate - it has to stop or we're all dead. I think … that's what I have to do."

Leoben's hand grasped his, finding it was trembling. He wasn't nearly as resigned to this as he pretended. Leoben moved forward, kneeling across his hips, so he could bend down across Sam's body. His lips sought Sam's, while his spirit sought… benediction. Forgiveness. This wasn't his doing, but it was his fault. Cylon had sinned, and he knew he was one of the worst. But only one of them could atone for them all.

The tent flap came open with a sound like a whip cracking, letting in a blast of cold air. He pulled back, startled by the noise and her return. "No!" Kara stood there, her arms folded as she shook her head adamantly. "That … is ridiculous. You're both crazy."

It was Sam who looked up at her - not the Sam of fear and bitterness, but the Sam of compassion and sorrow, bare of all the masks. He quoted softly, ""The One whose name cannot be spoken despaired at the war and death brought to paradise in his name. To atone for his sins and the sins of those who followed, he decreed his name banished and he cast himself in the space between life and death…""

Kara listened, and shook her head again, saying in a voice straining for scornful. "You're not a Lord of Kobol, Sam. You're a Cylon."

"All this has happened --" he started, but she cut him off.

"Don't you dare quote scripture at me," she shot a glare at Leoben. "I know where you got it. Don't listen to him."

"I didn't say it," Leoben protested. But the passage from the Sacred Scrolls helped build the pattern and he began to see the fullness of it - each connection in the thread of time, binding Sam and Kara and him, and the Colonies and the Cylon, layer upon layer, cycle after cycle.

From the beginning to the end.

Kara ignored him and told Sam, "I know there are stupid people who are blaming you for everything bad that ever happened -- but it's not your fault, Sam. You didn't make Earth like this, and you didn't make us come here. You didn't have any part in the attacks--"

"You don't know that," he interrupted, his voice like the sand. "What if it was me? What if I bring death wherever I go, and I just don't remember?"

"And what if it was me?" she returned softly. Silence fell for a long time, heavy with the weight of their uncertainty. "That Hybrid called me the Harbinger of Death."

"Which doesn't make you death," he pointed out. "The herald."

She knelt beside him, brushing shoulders with Leoben who was still straddling Sam's waist. She picked up Sam's hand in her own. "No, it couldn't have been you. It's just not possible - Cylon or not, it's not **you**. You are good, and kind, and strong -- Don't let Leoben twist you up and make you carry the guilt for what he and his kind did."

Sam's gaze shifted to Leoben, who shook his head slightly. Kara would understand someday, but right now she was too trapped within denial to see. Leoben didn't have to convince him of anything because he already knew. They were the same kind.

Sam didn't argue with her. He tugged her down by the hand. "I love you, Kara, that's never gonna change," he murmured and she put her mouth on his.

They kissed, long and deep, and Leoben remembered the taste of her lips from his brother's mistake on New Caprica. He shut his eyes, concentrating on the clearer memory of Sam's mouth against his. But it was Sam's body moving with every small shift, squirming between Leoben's thighs that reminded him of what they had not finished. Leoben moved back again between the splayed thighs, resolved to return the flagging cock to arousal. Putting his fingertips on the sharp hip bones, he pulled his thumbs downward along the delicate skin beneath and inward before meeting in the middle -- pleased when Sam jerked his head from Kara with a sharp breath.

Kara glanced back and saw what he was doing. She smirked and watched for a moment, licking her lips, "I can't decide if I should join you, or it would be better to watch."

"Like you could ever just watch," Sam scoffed.

"I could - with the proper incentive…" she teased.

But Leoben cut in before she could pull everything around her as she always did. "No. This is to fill Sam when he's empty, not for you to take."

For a moment, she seemed mulish and offended, like she was about to snap something rude, but her gaze settled on Sam, and she swallowed the words unspoken. Without looking away, she answered, "Fill, hm? You could've told me you like that -- might've been fun to try."

He didn't hear the teasing tone and his hands fisted into the blanket and the thick padding beneath him. He explained, haltingly, not looking at her. "I … just…. Sometimes… it doesn't matter. As long as there's someone."

To pull Sam's mind back into his body, Leoben trailed leisurely fingers across his stomach and downward, "There's definitely someone," he murmured. "Two of us."

After a moment of Leoben's hand stroking between Sam's legs, Sam's breath hitched into a gasp.

"All right, that's it," Kara muttered and when Leoben glanced that way, she was yanking her tanks over her head. She tossed them by the door. The rest of her clothes followed, and Leoben couldn't help admiring the sheer womanliness of her, which seemed in such contrast to Sam. They were such a well-matched pair. He was a bit smug that he was the one to see this, not the others who had obsessed so relentlessly.

"Told you, you couldn't watch," Sam teased. "C'mere."

She got very low over him, and his hands gripped her hips and slid over her waist, tracing her curves. "Yeah?" she challenged softly. "You were right. These hands looked like they needed someone to touch."

"Oh yeah," he admitted and covered her bare breasts, as if weighing them in his hands, and rubbed in a way that made her spine arch. He coaxed her down to suck and lick on her nipples.

While he was occupied with that, Leoben hunted around for something to use. Nobody in camp had very much.

A sudden small object hit him in the shoulder and he turned, startled. "I won it off Costanza at Triad," Sam explained, between breaths, as Kara picked up where Leoben left off, teasing him with little hip movements and rubbing her folds against the head of his cock.

Leoben picked up the small plastic bottle to find it half-full of 'personal lubricant', which was amusing proof of the existence of God. But at least they had it.

"You were preparing for this, weren't you?" Kara demanded. "Because you never need that stuff with me."

"Nope," he agreed and tried to bring her down on him. "You're always so wet. So hot."

Leoben had to agree with that, watching them very nearly frak. They were both so beautiful. Flushed with sweat and want, they made his own desire throb through his veins. He hurried out of his own clothes, finding he was very nearly as hard as Sam, just from watching them.

"Want you," she panted and very nearly pushed down on Sam, before her gaze caught sight of Leoben kneeling next her, and she went high on her knees above him, out of reach. "But not yet."

"Kara!"

She laughed and squirmed out of his grip. "No, Sammy. This started as Leoben's show, and I know you want him too."

For a moment, no one moved or spoke, waiting… Leoben didn't even know what he was waiting for, until Sam groaned in frustration.

"Gods! If I have to jerk off, even with both of you here, because you can't figure out what the frak to do --"

Permission granted, Leoben could move. "We know," Leoben said, and wrapped a tight hand around Sam's erection, wanting him hard but not too close. "You in the middle," Leoben suggested. "Me in you, and you in Kara."

"Can we do that?" Kara asked doubtfully, frowning.

Leoben, with the memories of multiple combinations of Cylons attempting to breed, knew exactly what to do.

Kara's legs went around them both, and Leoben held her knees while Sam pushed inside her. She grabbed his shoulders and he could see her nails digging into Sam's skin. Sam put his head down against her, holding himself up above her body. "Gods, do it," he said hoarsely, "I can't hold here forever."

Leoben set his hard, slick cock in the right place and it was like falling slowly, more deeply, letting gravity pull him inside. Until he was nestled against Sam in back, and Kara pushed against him in front, and he groaned and shuddered all through his body.

"Is this what you wanted, Sam?" Kara whispered. "Me and you and him? Him frakking you while you frak me?"

Leoben pulled back and thrust again - he didn't have much leverage, afraid to topple the delicate pyramid, but it was enough to push Sam into Kara beneath him, moving without moving.

"I --" Sam could barely speak, each time he was cut off from what he might say by another push inside. "Oh lords of Kobol, yes. Don't stop," he finally managed to plead in a hoarse voice.

"Do you feel alive?" Leoben demanded, tightening his grip on Kara's thighs to help keep her snugly against Sam, so his movements in Sam would echo within her. "Do you both feel alive? Because you are… you're alive. We're all alive."

He felt alive - powerful and strong, every muscle holding, while the sensations rising from his center were making his blood seem to burn. Kara's head was thrown back, her eyes tightly shut as she panted with pleasure. He couldn't see Sam's face, tucked against Kara's shoulder, but his shoulders were bunched in strain and his back was taut, all the way down his spine to where they touched. Sam held still and unresisting, letting Leoben push him into Kara, with little moans.

It seemed for that moment, that he was frakking them both. He could possess Sam, as he remembered from the days on Caprica, and Kara too, as his second-hand memories wanted.

Soon it was getting so much, as Sam tightened, holding Leoben inside the heat, and the need took away conscious thought. At the moment orgasm rushed into him, he saw a new memory against his eyelids. It was not his own, and he didn't think it was from his model line, but something from long before…

 _They weren't in the same bodies, but he knew it was them._

 _Beneath a flowery green arbor, shaded from the bright sun and blue sky, Kara lay on a bier. She was wearing a green dress and small white flowers in her long hair. Her eyes were closed, as if she were sleeping, but her skin was waxen._

 _Sam stood next to her, wearing stark red, as if he were covered in blood. He held her hands in both of his and promised her in a whisper, "If I can't conquer death, then I will **be** death. You will come back. I swear this is not the end…"_

The moment was gone, and Leoben cried out, wanting to see more, learn more, but transcendence became sweat, and a glimpse of heaven became an earthly landing.

Blinking, he fell back into his body, as Sam grabbed control from him to shove himself into Kara as if pursuing the same view of what had been.

Withdrawing, Leoben trailed his hands backward along Sam's flanks, unable to resist touching him, even when he knew… it was not for him.

"C'mon, Kara," Sam urged her harshly, "c'mon, it's just you and me now."

She had both hands above her head, trying to brace herself against the support pole in the corner. "Just… a bit more.." she forced out until at last she shuddered and flushed, biting her lip with her head thrown back.

"Gods…" Sam followed her a moment later, quick motions freezing to stillness. Then he released his breath, in quick pants and his arms began to tremble. He collapsed next to her and rolled onto his back. "Holy frakking gods, I think I'm dead," he groaned. "Next time we do that - one at a time."

Kara chuckled at him. "Too much for you, baby?" But her hand toyed with his sweat-soaked hair idly and she whispered, "You're alive, Sam. We're both alive."

He turned his head to kiss her and pulled her up on his chest with an arm around her back.

Leoben waited, kneeling in the gathering dark, all but forgotten as they drifted off to sleep. His eyes traced their bodies, not with avarice or even lust, but reverence and gratitude he'd shared it as long as he could. He hadn't done what he'd come in here to do - but perhaps he'd done something even better.

When they were asleep, he dressed quickly and silently and spread the blanket over them. At the flap, Leoben glanced back at the two of them, curled together like one being, and he smiled.

A snippet of sacred text, long lost from the human canon, whispered in his memory:

 _"Mighty Zeus decreed the cycles would continue until reviled Hades found redemption in the love of bright Aurora. Only then would Hades reopen the gates to Elysium. And at last, all men, the living and the dead, would find their peace."_

Leoben slipped from the tent into the cold air and silver moonlight to wait for the dawn.

  
 _Fin_.


End file.
